CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P9

CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P9

CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P9: Iwish to thank the editing team at Charles River Media (Emi Smith,
Karen Gill, Jennifer Blaney, and Jenifer Niles) for their help in getting
this book publish-ready. Thanks, too, to my technical editor, Mike
Duggan. Also deserving recognition are the guys who make the Torque
Game Engine available, GarageGames, who directly or indirectly made
this book and the accompanying CD possible. In particular, I want to
thank Joe Maruschak at GarageGames for the great articles and forum
answers that have helped me and many others get a handle on this engine.
I...

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218 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
has a wide range of tools for creating textures in the actual mesh. The two images
shown in Figure 9.9 started as planes. The steel texture on the right was created by
setting the plane segments to 20 × 20. Some of the polygons were beveled, and a
MeshSmooth modifier was applied. The reptile texture on the left was converted to
an Editable Poly and subdivided with the Cut tool. Some of the sections were
beveled, and Edge Tesselation was applied. The entire model had the MeshSmooth
modifier applied to it.
To take this idea further, you can unwrap the model to a UV template, paint the
template, and apply the result to the model again. This is how the reptile texture
was created. First, the model was unwrapped using the Unwrap UVWs modifier. The
UVs were used to create a template, which was then imported to Photoshop and
painted with darker green paint in the lower faces and lighter green paint in the
more elevated faces. This texture was then reapplied to the model in 3ds Max. At
this point, you can create another rendering of the model in its textured state for the
final texture bitmap.
FIGURE 9.9 You can model textures in 3ds Max and then render them as a texture file.

Chapter 9 Character Texturing 219
TROUBLESHOOTING
After a texture is on a model, problems with the unwrap can become more appar-
ent. Misaligned Unwrap modifiers can be disorienting to deal with, and distorted
textures can ruin a model’s believability.
Misaligned Unwrap
If you have an Unwrap UVW modifier that has become misaligned, meaning that
the seams for the UVs appear to have become offset from the actual model location,
unfreeze and unhide everything, and make sure all the modifiers are “on” in the
modifier stack.
Distorted Textures
If you are going to use rivets or some other round design in your texture, be careful
about using the Normal map to unwrap the model. If the model is not flat to the
front or back view (or whichever view you use), you can get texture distortion,
which is more obvious if the texture has circular elements, because the oblong shape
is a dead giveaway. This can also be the case if you have not carefully corrected the
UVs by moving vertices in the UVW Unwrap dialog box. In either case, it ruins the
believability of the effect. In those instances, it’s better to unwrap using a Planar
map aligned to the model with Best Align than using Normal map.
SUMMARY
Character texturing begins with a template that lays out the UVs for the model in
such a way that they are as flat and as recognizable as possible. Layer Styles and
Layer Masking are powerful tools for creating and enhancing textures. Shadows and
highlights can give thickness to a layer of paint or make a handmade scratch look
like it cuts into the surface. Scratches, ribs, dents, grime, and dirt layers can make a
surface look more authentic. Digital photos are a quick way to create a face texture,
whether the image has to be stretched to fit the UVs, or it has to be cut and pasted
into different pieces that fit and then blended together. 3ds Max is a great texture
creation tool; you can model, render, and hand-paint textures in Photoshop and
then reapply them to a model.

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CHAPTER
10 CHARACTER RIGGING
In This Chapter
• Rigging—Overview
• Minimizing Vertex Collapse
• Fitting the Biped to the Character Mesh
• Examining the Skinning Process
• Moving and Rotating Bones to Check Vertex Assignments
• Rigging a Robot
• Using the Default Player Biped with a Custom Mesh
• Combining Bones with Biped
221

222 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
RIGGING—OVERVIEW
Rigging is the process of creating and applying a skeletal structure to your character
mesh so that when the different bones move, the mesh moves with them in a con-
vincing way. You can achieve the skeleton part of the equation with either biped or
bones. The skeletal system is connected to the character mesh by using the Skin
modifier. By taking care in how you create the mesh, how you create the skeleton,
and how you tie the two together, you increase your chances of success when it
comes to the final stages of animating and exporting to the Torque Game Engine.
The difficulties of rigging are hard to appreciate until you have actually rigged a rea-
sonably complex character yourself. It is a realm full of tricks, compromises, pitfalls,
and challenges.
Deciding Between Bones and Biped
Biped is a precanned humanoid skeleton system that is adjustable to most of the
models and situations you might run up against. Bones require more work than the
biped, because you have to build the skeletal structure bone-by-bone yourself, and
then you must create inverse kinematic (IK) relationships between the bones. Al-
though creating a bones skeletal structure by hand is ultimately more flexible, biped
is the more straightforward method. The 3ds Max help has several tutorials on how
to set up a bones rig; also, the sections in this chapter on helper bones and using the
Skin modifier apply equally to both biped and bones. Therefore, biped will be the
primary skeletal system addressed in this chapter.
Setting Up the Mesh as a 3D Template
Before you start this process, you should back up your character mesh. Open a copy
of the character mesh, which should by now be approximately 2.5 meters tall, facing
the back viewport, and converted to an Editable Mesh. Any UV maps, unwrapping,
and texturing should already be applied.
Although you can adjust your mesh to fit a biped, the normal procedure is to let
your mesh define what the biped will look like. This is easier if you make the mesh
transparent and frozen. You can’t select frozen objects, so it’s not possible to acci-
dentally select some of the faces of your mesh. By making the mesh transparent,
you can see the bones inside the mesh to select and manipulate them. To do this,
right-click the mesh, select Properties from the right-click menu, and check the
boxes for Freeze and See-Through; then uncheck the box for Show Frozen in Gray.
Turning off Show Frozen in Gray allows your mesh to keep some of its shading
information so that you can keep a sense of its form as you fit the biped to it. Make
sure the viewport is set to display Edged Faces, because edges give you a visual cue
as to where key joints are in your mesh.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 223
Making a Biped
To create a biped, select Create Panel, Systems, and click the Biped button. Click-
drag, similar to when you are creating a box primitive, to set the size of the biped.
On the panel to your right, in the Create Biped rollout, you will see that you can also
type in a height for the biped. Test out the different structures you can make with a
biped by changing the number of links for fingers, tail, spine, and so on.
Modifying the Parameters of a Biped After You’ve Created It
You can change the body type of the biped, the number of links for different bones,
the name, and the height of the biped at the time of creation or afterward. In Chap-
ter 1, “Introduction to 3ds Max,” we discussed the idea that if you create something
like a box primitive in 3ds Max, after you click on something else, you lose the
menus that allow you to modify the box. So, to modify the box after it has been cre-
ated, you must select the box and activate the Modify panel to once again have ac-
cess to the parameters and segments of that box. The same is true for biped, but it is
slightly more complex. To modify the structure or the name of a biped after you’ve
created it, you must select a bone on the biped, activate the Motion panel, and acti-
vate Figure mode, which is a mode specifically designed for modifying the number,
size, and rotation of the different bones in the biped.
Select a bone on the biped and activate the Motion panel. On the Biped rollout,
click the Figure mode icon to turn it on. The Structure rollout shows up below, al-
lowing you to change the height of the biped or the number of links associated with
different body parts. What you want for your astronaut character is a default biped
with only two spine links and one toe link. Figure 10.1 shows what the menus look
like if you are in Figure mode and how the menus change if you turn off Figure
mode.
Understanding the Biped
It is a worthwhile exercise to simply create a biped and experiment with moving the
various bones so that you can visually understand how rotating or moving one bone
affects other bones. This is best done with Figure mode turned off. Rotating the hips
rotates the upper thighs and all the way down to the feet, if the feet are not some-
how anchored to the ground. Rotating any of the spine bones also rotates the entire
upper body, from that spine bone and upward. Moving a foot or hand moves the
rest of that limb, up to the hip or clavicle bone. Several tutorials are available in the
Tutorials section of the 3ds Max Help drop-down menu if you feel you need further
information on biped skeletal animation.

224 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
FIGURE 10.1 From the Motion panel, you can turn Figure mode on or off.
Understanding the Biped Center of Mass (COM)
The biped is actually a hierarchy of objects, with one special parent object called
Bip01. This object is also known as the Center Of Mass (COM). It appears as a blue
tetrahedron that is generally not visible unless you are in wireframe mode, because
it is buried in the pelvis of the biped. Because the biped has so many parts, naming
and keeping track of them can be tricky. If you want to rename the biped to a differ-
ent root name than Bip01, select a bone, and in the Motion panel, in the Biped roll-
out, expand the Modes and Display menu and change the root name there. All the
other bones associated with this biped now carry the new root name.
Rotating the Biped
When you are rotating or moving the biped as a unit, make sure you are in Figure
mode. Before you rotate the biped so that it is facing the back view, make sure that
your Angular Snap toggle is turned on. This helps you to make the rotation of the
biped an exact 180 degrees. Under the Track Selection rollout, click Body Rotation.
Click and drag on the rotation gizmo to cause a full 180-degree rotation on the biped.
Alternatively, you can select the COM object (Bip01) and use the Rotate tool to rotate
the biped.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 225
Moving the Biped
Moving the biped is similar to rotating the biped. Make sure you are in Figure mode,
and select Body Horizontal or Body Vertical from the Track Selection rollout. Alter-
nately, you can select the COM object (Bip01) and use the Move tool to position the
biped. Move the biped so that the bottom of the feet and the pelvis line up with your
character mesh as closely as possible.
MINIMIZING VERTEX COLLAPSE
The subject of vertex collapse is slightly advanced. If this is your first time rigging a charac-
ter, try working with the standard biped setup until you have a little practice. Delving into
helper bones, prerotated biped bones, and proxy objects may be too much for right now.
Even though we haven’t discussed assigning the mesh vertices to the different
bones yet, the subject of vertex collapse has to do so much with bones that we must
address it first. In areas like the elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees, mesh vertices
collapse when the joints rotate. The problem is illustrated in Figure 10.2. When the
elbow is rotated, the vertices collapse and cause an unnaturally thin elbow area. This
happens because when the bone rotates, it also rotates the vertices of the mesh. If
the forearm is rotating and the upper arm is not, there is going to be a collapse as the
forearm vertices meet the upper arm. The first step to minimizing this problem is
carefully assigning vertices to the bones using the available tools. Additional meth-
ods are discussed in this section.
FIGURE 10.2 Shoulders, hips, and elbows are vulnerable to vertex collapse.

226 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
Minimizing Collapsed Vertices by Modeling
Two approaches are often successful in minimizing collapsed vertices by way of
modeling. The first method is modeling the character in a “ready” pose, with knees,
elbows, and other joints slightly bent, so that the creasing or collapsing of vertices
that occurs during full movement is not as pronounced. Modeling, and unwrapping,
a character this way is a little harder, although some tricks can make this work bet-
ter. The second method is hiding the deformations with the model itself. The charac-
ter may have shoulder pads or armor that covers most of the shoulder area where
the vertices are most affected by movement. Where vertices in the shoulder area
must be divided between the clavicle and upper arm bones, the shoulder pad or
armor might be assigned to the clavicle only so that it does not collapse.
Minimizing Collapsed Vertices by Prerotating Biped Bones
Biped is trying to mimic the human skeletal system, and the Skin modifier is trying to
mimic that incredible organ that stretches perfectly over the human body. Neither of
these is an easy feat. Getting the left arm of the biped to turn and hold a gun that is
tucked under the character’s right arm requires a real stretch. And, by the time you
get it there, the twists and turns you have to make on the biped’s upper arm, lower
arm, and hand can end up making a mess of the mesh. It’s possible to make this
work, but let me tell you a helpful technique. In Figure mode, after you’ve sized the
biped to fit your mesh, rotate the upper-left arm +90 degrees around X and –5
degrees around Y. Then rotate the left forearm +4 degrees around Z, and rotate the
left hand –90 degrees around X, –20 degrees around Y, and about –20 degrees around
Z. The end effect of this is that the upper-left arm is rotated into a position that is
more forgiving for a rifle-carrying pose. The elbow joint can now bend directly to the
right side and thus ends up putting less twist on the shoulder vertices. Unless you are
looking for this modification, it is difficult to even tell it has been done.
Minimizing Collapsed Vertices by Using Helper Bones
If this is your first time rigging a character, you may want to skip this section on using helper
bones for now and give it a try later when you have had a little experience with creating a
more standard character rig.
Helper bones are simply bones you create and place in problem areas such as the
hips, shoulders, and elbows to help the mesh to adjust smoothly to the skeleton. A
standard bone is created at the joints for hips, shoulders, and elbows. This extra
bone is constrained with an Orientation constraint to the bones on either side of it.
Then, when the bones on either side of the helper bone move, it bridges the angular
gap between them. The forearm bone in Figure 10.3 is set to transparent so you can
clearly see this in action; the forearm is bent at 90 degrees, but the helper, which is
the gray bone sitting at the joint of the elbow, is only bent at 45 degrees. When the

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 227
character mesh is skinned to the skeleton, its vertices in these joint areas are applied
to the helper bones, minimizing resultant distortion.
In this section, we engage in parenting objects and creating parent-child relationships. If you
need review on creating parent-child relationships, see Chapter 5, “Animating Game Art.”
FIGURE 10.3 Helper bones bridge the gap between the bones on either
side of them.
Creating a Helper Bone
You can create bones from the Character pull-down menu by selecting Bone Tools
and clicking the Create Bones button, or from the Create panel under Systems,
Bones. Because you should set 3ds Max to a metric scale for this operation, adjust
your default bone Width and Height to 0.1m or so. (It is also possible to create the
rig with generic units in 3ds Max, where you work as if every unit is a meter.) Click
on the screen once to place the bone’s first joint, and then click again to place the
next joint. You need only one bone per problem area, so place your first bone, right-
click to escape the bone creating process, and delete the bone tip that is automati-
cally formed at the end of the bone. The process of adding helper bones to a biped is
on the video FittingBipedAndHelperBones.wmv, in the Videos folder on the compan-
ON THE CD ion CD-ROM.
A bone is placed on the biped where the problem joints are. When placing a
helper bone for the elbow, for example, take care that the pivot point of the helper
bone is positioned exactly where the pivot point is for the elbow. Parent the helper

228 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
bone to the bone it is helping; that is, the helper bone for the elbow should become
a child of the forearm bone, using Select and Link. Remember that Select and Link
operates by clicking and dragging with the left mouse button on the child, and re-
leasing the mouse button when the cursor is over the parent.
Adding Orientation Constraints to the Helper Bone
You can add an Orientation constraint to the helper bone so that it is influenced by
the orientation of the bone above it and the orientation of the bone below it. To do
this, select the helper bone and then, from the Animation drop-down menu, select
Constraints, Orientation Constraint. Then click on the bone above the helper bone.
When you constrain a helper bone to a biped bone, the helper bone generally flips
into a new orientation; you can remedy this by checking Keep Initial Offset. (See the
motion menu in Figure 10.4.) This is all that is necessary for the first half of this
process.
FIGURE 10.4 The helper bone with Orientation constraints to the bones above and below it.
You should now be in the Motion panel. Figure 10.4 shows a biped with helper
bones added on the left, and a stock biped with no helpers on the right. The Motion
panel has been expanded to two columns so that you can see how the Orientation
constraints work. You can see in the menu a rollout for Rotation List, which lists the
different constraints that are on your helper bone at the moment. Orientation con-
straint should be on this list. Further down the panel is an Orientation constraint

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 229
rollout, which has a list box in it; the bone that is above your helper bone should be
in this list; notice that by default the bone above your helper bone is influencing the
helper bone 50 percent. Click on Add Orientation Target, and select the bone below
your helper bone. By default, both bones now influence your helper bone 50 per-
cent each. Figure 10.4 shows what the Motion panel should look like when this is
done. Note also from this figure that Keep Initial Offset is checked. It is worth noting
that in the PRS Parameters rollout, the Rotation button is turned on, enabling all the
Rotation rollouts in the menu below.
This means that the helper bone is really finding a middle rotational orientation
between the two bones it is constrained to. If the mesh vertices in the elbow area are
assigned to the helper bone, the vertex collapse is more subtle and acceptable. This
technique works for both Biped and Bones. It is a good idea to name these helper
bones so that you can easily identify and access them later. Give them a name that
makes sense to you, such as HelperRElbow (meaning helper bone for the right elbow).
Using Proxies for the Helper Bones at the Hips
If you try to use a helper bone at the hip area, between the pelvis and the upper leg
bone, the helper bone twists in both the Y axis and the X axis, causing ugly deforma-
tions to the mesh. By using proxies, or stand-ins, for the pelvis and the upper leg
bone, you can avoid this problem. As shown in Figure 10.4, simply create three
boxes: ProxyRThighbone, ProxyLThighbone, and ProxyPelvis. Apply an Orientation
constraint to each proxy so that it is oriented 100 percent to its parent bone. Use the
same pivot point for both of the thighbone proxies that you used for each thigh-
bone. Make each proxy a child of the bone it is a proxy for; for example, parent
ProxyPelvis to the biped pelvis. Then place a helper bone for the left and right
hip, so that the pivot point matches the pivot point for each upper leg bone. You
can parent each hip helper bone to its proxy object. For example, you can parent
HelperLHip to ProxyLThighbone. These proxies are visible in Figure 10.4 as red boxes.
You should not add proxy bones to the Skin modifier because they will not receive
vertex assignments. They are only there to facilitate proper functioning of the helper
bones in the hip area. The process of placing and constraining proxies for the hip
area is in the video ProxiesAndLinking.wmv, located in the Videos folder on the com-
ON THE CD panion CD-ROM.
Another important aspect to helper bones (and this applies to proxy objects as
well) is that if you want to save the biped to a BIP file so that you can apply it to
other bipeds, you have to insert dummy objects as proxy objects, or stand-ins, for
every bone that the helper bone will be constrained to. This is not used as a step-by-
step example here because it can be unwieldy, and the size and location of the
dummy objects do not translate well across differently sized bipeds. An example of
this is located in the Files/Misc folder on the companion CD-ROM and is called
ON THE CD
BipedDummy.max.

230 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
Minimizing Deformations by Using the Joint Angle Deformer
The Skin modifier has an available gizmo called the Joint Angle Deformer, which
bears mentioning because you can also use it to control the deformation of the mesh
as the bones move. Because we typically delete the character mesh for the animation
sequences, the helper bone technique discussed earlier is a more applicable solution.
FITTING THE BIPED TO THE CHARACTER MESH
Figure 10.5 shows three bipeds at different phases of being fit to the character mesh.
The third biped is shown in profile at the far right of this figure. All of these adjust-
ments are being performed while the biped is in Figure mode. Figure mode is a button
on this panel that allows you to adjust the structure, location, and orientation of the
biped itself as well as the bones in the biped. Note in this image that Figure mode is
turned on. The first biped has been rotated to face the back view and has been
moved as necessary to line up with the character mesh. The second biped has had its
hips and clavicle bones scaled to match the character mesh, and the legs and arms
have been rotated and scaled to fit the mesh. The third biped has had the spine
scaled horizontally, the head scaled to fill the mesh head, and the legs and arms rotated
from the side view to make sure that its bones are lined up as well as possible to the
different parts of the character mesh. This third biped has also had the left arm pre-
rotated and helper bones added, although these modifications are optional.
FIGURE 10.5 Three bipeds at different phases of being fit to a character mesh.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 231
Scaling the Pelvis and Clavicles of the Biped
One of the first adjustments that must be made on the biped is scaling the hips and
clavicle bones to match the width of these areas of the character mesh. This reposi-
tions the legs and arms so that later, you can match them to the character mesh. You
can scale the pelvis axially by selecting the pelvis and using the Z axis of the Scale
tool to make it wider or narrower according to the needs of your mesh. In this case,
you can make the pelvis a bit wider. You can scale the clavicle bones axially as well;
select them both, or select one, and use the Symmetrical button from the Track Se-
lection rollout to easily select the opposite of any selected bone.
Scaling and Rotating the Legs and Arms of the Biped
After you’ve scaled the hips and clavicles to match the character mesh, rotate the
arms and legs if necessary so that they will be aligned to the character’s arms and
legs. Again, make sure the Angular Snap toggle is turned on so that you can keep
the left and right sides of your biped in step with one another when you rotate. You
may want to lower the Angular Snap default to one-degree increments so that you
can get a more refined rotation for this fit. When you’ve rotated the arms and legs
correctly, select both sides of the upper arm bones and scale them axially if neces-
sary so that the elbow of the biped lines up with the elbow of the character mesh.
Scale and rotate the lower arm and leg bones if necessary, and rotate the hands as
well. Although this example does not use the single finger on each of the biped’s
hands, if you did want to use it in the animation process, you’d probably want to
scale it up to one big, fat finger. A one-bone foot is sufficient for a game character,
but if you do want to use a two-bone foot, simply scale up the toe0 bone, as shown
on the third biped in Figure 10.5. If you want a simpler foot, scale the main foot
bone up until it is as big as the foot on your character mesh. The run cycle example
in Chapter 11, “Character Animation,” uses a one-bone foot.
Aligning the Biped to the Character Mesh from the Side View
Finally, check the right or left view to see how well the modified biped fits your
character mesh. One of the first things to check is the overall position of the pelvis.
Remember, you can move the biped as a unit by selecting the Bip01 COM object and
moving it (while in Figure mode). You may also need to rotate the upper and lower
arms, or rotate the first or second spine bones to match your mesh. Rotate or scale
the neck or head if the head is not positioned correctly. Scale the head so that it
nearly fills up the space for the head area of your character mesh.
Saving the Figure File
After you have gone through the trouble of fitting the biped to your mesh, you can
save the Figure file so that you can access it later. The Figure file remembers the
structure and positions of your biped’s bones and can be used on future bipeds you

232 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
might want to use with the same or similar meshes. This button looks like a floppy
disk and is called Save File. You can find it on the Biped rollout; it’s active only while
the biped is in Figure mode.
EXAMINING THE SKINNING PROCESS
When the Skin modifier is added to a mesh, you have the option of adding bones to
the modifier. Every vertex of the mesh (or the skin) is assigned to one of these
bones, or to a combination of bones. Then, when the biped bones are keyframed,
the mesh moves along with them.
Applying a Skeleton via Skin or Physique
3ds Max offers two methods of applying a skeleton to a mesh: Skin and Physique.
We will be using the Skin modifier. Skin is supported for real-time deformation, and
Physique is not. Real-time deformation uses the node transforms of the bones to
drive the mesh vertices, a very effective solution. Physique animations export as
morph animations, where a snapshot is taken of the position of all vertices of the
mesh at each frame. This creates very large and inefficient files. Morph animation
also prohibits default animations (see Chapter 11, “Character Animation”), blend
animations, and transitions. So, the Skin modifier is the way the mesh is linked
to the bones or biped. The help for Skin can be tricky to find, depending on your
version of 3ds Max, because most references to Skin actually refer to Physique. In
version 8, check under Help, Reference, select the Index tab, and look up Skin,
Save/Load Envelopes.
Ensuring You’re Ready for Skinning
Before you start the skinning process, make sure you have a mesh that is defined
well with the biped or bones you are planning on using. If you do not have enough
edges to enable the joints to move well, or if your edges are in the wrong places, you
will waste time trying to adapt a poorly designed mesh to a skeleton. Build the mesh
so that you can assign each vertex in the mesh to one bone or have it shared by two
bones. This can minimize collapsing of joints and make the mesh look as good as
possible when the character is moving. Place your character mesh next to the biped
and make any necessary edits in the mesh before moving on. The final prep before
adding the Skin modifier is making sure both the biped and the character mesh are
standing with their feet at the origin and that the bones are as well placed and cen-
tered within the mesh as possible. Check this from the back view (which looks at the
front of your character) and from the side views.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 233
Applying the Skin Modifier to the Character Mesh
At this stage, make sure that the biped is still in Figure mode. The character mesh
should be unfrozen, yet transparent so that the bones are visible. Alternately, you
can work in wireframe mode if you want. Select the character mesh and apply the
Skin modifier. The interface for the Skin modifier is extensive. The normal proce-
dure is to start by adding the bones that will be assigned vertices. On the Skin menu,
in the Parameters rollout, click the Bones Add button. The process of adding and ad-
justing the Skin modifier is shown on the video SkinModifier.wmv, located in the
ON THE CD Videos folder on the companion CD-ROM.
Deciding Which Bones to Add to the Skin Modifier
It is important that you add only the bones you are actually going to need in the an-
imations. Keep in mind that you need to account for every vertex in the mesh, and
every bone you add to the Skin modifier must have at least one vertex assignment,
even if it is just a partial assignment. This means that you can add only necessary
bones to the Skin modifier for vertex assignment. Keep bones such as Bip01_Head_
nub out. For most real-time rendering purposes, the only bones you will want to add
to the modifier are the head, clavicles, upper arms, forearms, hands, spines (usually
a biped with two spine bones is sufficient), pelvis, thighs, calves, and feet. If you
want a two-bone foot, you can include toe0 in this list. If you are using helper
bones, include them in the list. If you are using proxy bones in the hip area, don’t
include them in the list; they are only for keeping the hip helper bones properly
constrained, so they should not receive vertex assignments. If you want to delete a
bone from the list or add a bone to the list after the vertex assignment process has
begun, you can do so, but if there are problems with the export, you may need to
delete the Skin modifier and go through the process again.
Adjusting the Envelope
Each bone comes equipped with an envelope; you can resize these envelopes to se-
lect vertices in the mesh. After you’ve added all relevant bones to the Skin modifier
list, turn on the Enable Envelopes button. This makes it possible to select any partic-
ular bone from the list or via the viewport. Figure 10.6 shows that the Skin modifier
has been added to the character mesh, the relevant bones have been added to the
Skin modifier, and the Edit Envelopes button in the Parameters rollout has been ac-
tivated. The bone currently selected in this screen shot is the head, so you can see
that the head bone on the mesh now has its envelope activated. Each bone, when
selected either in the working area or off the side panel, has an envelope that you
can adjust to vary the vertices that will be affected by that bone. Skinning is a process

234 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
of tuning which vertices in the mesh are affected by which bones. Envelope-based
vertex assignment is covered in the video SkinModifier.wmv, located in the Videos
ON THE CD folder on the companion CD-ROM.
FIGURE 10.6 The Skinning process has begun with the head bone.
Each bone has two envelopes: a bright red inner envelope, and a dark red outer
envelope. Each of the envelopes is shaped like a capsule, with a circle at each end,
and four control points on each circle that you can select and move with the Move
tool. In Figure 10.6, one of the control points of the inner envelope has been se-
lected with the Move tool active; you can now move this control point and thus
alter the head bone’s influence over the surrounding vertices.
Selecting Relative or Absolute
You can use two methods to calculate how the envelopes affect vertices. The default
is called the Absolute method, in which any vertex that is within the outer, dark red
envelope is assigned 100 percent to that bone. In the Relative method, any vertex
that is within the inner, bright red envelope is assigned to the bone; vertices that fall
between the inner and outer envelopes are shared by neighboring bones, based on
envelope overlaps. Even though the Absolute method is the default, you will proba-
bly want to try the Relative method, especially in areas like shoulders, elbows, and
hips; sharing vertices between envelopes helps make the skin “stretch” across joints
to create more realistic motion. To select Relative or Absolute, click the A or R button
in the Envelope Properties section of the Parameters rollout in the Skin modifier.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 235
Assigning Vertices to Helper Bones
In Figure 10.7, all the envelopes have been turned on at the same time so that you
can see how the helper bones are taking care of the vertices in the problem areas of
the shoulder, elbow, and hip. If you are using helper bones, remember that they are
taking responsibility for the regular bones only at the trouble areas. For example,
the helper for the shoulder area is being assigned vertices for the entire shoulder
area, which includes some of the vertices that would normally be assigned to the
clavicle and some of the vertices that would normally be assigned to the upper arm.
Vertices in the middle area of the upper arm are assigned to the upper arm bone. As
you move further down the upper arm to the elbow joint, those vertices are as-
signed to the elbow helper bone. Again, helper bones are optional.
FIGURE 10.7 All bone envelopes are now visible.
Resizing Envelopes
Figure 10.7 also illustrates why the character’s legs and arms cannot be too close to the
body. The astronaut’s legs are about as close together as you would want your charac-
ter’s legs to be. It is easy for a bone’s envelope to capture vertices that should belong to
another bone. The bones on the right side of the image have been assigned vertices,
and the bones on the left side are still in process. The inner envelope of the right-hand
bone has been expanded until it has contacted the outer envelope, causing the outer

236 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines
envelope to blow out to several times its original size. You can avoid this by resizing
the outer envelope before adjusting the inner envelope. Often you can select and
move an envelope control point by doing a click-drag-release type action; however,
sometimes you have to specifically click and release on a particular control point to se-
lect it. You will see the move gizmo move to that point; then you can click and drag on
the move gizmo to move the control point.
Adjusting the Axis of the Envelope
Besides the four control points at each cross section of an envelope, each envelope
has an axis that goes through the bone. You can select this axis to activate the bone,
rather than selecting the bones from the Skin bones list. You can shorten, lengthen,
or reposition this axis as necessary to achieve the desired result. You accomplish this
the same way as when you edit the cross-section control points, by simply moving
the control points with the Move tool. The axis is actually shorter than the distance
from one cross section to the other. If you want to select an axis control point, just
look for the short dark line going through the center of the bone, and select one of
the two dark control points at either end. Generally, it is a good idea not to reposi-
tion these except to shorten or lengthen the influence of a bone.
Checking the Side View
Working from the side view and perspective/user views is also important to ensure
that the envelopes are influencing the proper vertices. In Figure 10.8, a side view
shows that the envelope for the foot has flipped to a vertical orientation. In this
image, the envelope is in the process of being moved to a horizontal orientation.
Very short bones, like the bone in the foot, will flip like this and need to be realigned.
To fix this, select and move the control point at the upper end of the envelope axis.
This can be a little deceptive, because even though the proper axis control point was
selected, the move gizmo is centered on one of the control points of the envelope
cross section. This is one case where moving both control points on the axis, one at
a time, may be necessary to properly center the envelope on the foot.
Assigning a Vertex to Every Bone
For Torque to accept the character, you have to assign at least one vertex to every
bone that is included in the Skin modifier. One way to help this happen is to make
sure that you keep the Weight All Vertices check box checked in the Advanced Pa-
rameters rollout. This saves you the trouble of tracking down stray vertices, which
may have never been assigned a bone.
Keeping the Armpit Vertices Tied to the Spine/Clavicle Bone
This mesh has one edge, with two vertices, that defines the area where the arm
meets the body. You should assign these two vertices to the spine or clavicle bones,
not the upper arm.

Chapter 10 Character Rigging 237
FIGURE 10.8 Correcting a rotated envelope.
Using Envelopes as a First-Pass Tool
Using envelopes for vertex assignments is a great way to start the skinning process,
but don’t get into the trap of thinking that you have to tweak the envelopes over
and over until the vertex assignments are perfect. Spend some time on each enve-
lope, in both front and side views, and then move on to other vertex assignment
tools found in the Skin modifier, such as the Abs Effect and the Weight tool.
Moving the Bones After Skinning Has Started
You can effectively “turn off” the vertex assignments if you need to move or rotate
the bones so that they fit the mesh better. Do this from the Skin Modifier menu, in
the Parameters rollout, by unchecking the Always Transform box. After you’ve
repositioned your bones, turn this check box back on to proceed as usual.
Assigning Weights to Vertices with Absolute Effect
Ultimately, you may need to select vertices individually and assign their weight
using the Weight Properties group of the Parameters rollout for the Skin modifier. A
box called Abs Effect allows you to select one or more vertices (assuming you have
enabled Vertices selection from the Parameters menu earlier) and assign how much
effect the currently selected bone will have on them. For example, if you have a ver-
tex that is assigned to the pelvis and you want to assign it to the upper leg, activate
the Upper Leg envelope, select the vertex, and enter 1.0 in the Abs Effect box. When